Why Mean Communications?

When I was three years old, I couldn’t speak. My parents were worried, because although I wasn’t mute, I was completely fluent in my own brand of gibberish. Little did my parents know that I was suffering a long-term effect of a milk allergy, giving me earache after earache. Essentially, underneath those tufts of curly brown hair were ears with water sloshing behind my eardrums. It was only after they discovered my allergy to milk and I underwent a series of tubes in my ears that I began to hear normally, and thus began the journey of learning to speak at the ripe age of four. It seems that my first great challenge in life was learning how to communicate.

Marshall McLuhan

In college, I remember hearing the catch phrase “the medium is the message” for the first time. Initially, I was puzzled, with that sort of confusion reserved for calculators when you try to divide by zero (try it yourself if you’re unfamiliar). However, this revolutionary concept, coupled with several others from Marshall McLuhan, permanently wrinkled my brain, and ultimately inspired me to do this work in communications.

There are several other great thinkers who heavily inform our work, and we’d be committing an injustice to not acknowledge some others whose thoughts constantly resonate in our minds. For starters, this entire website is built around the idea of Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind, which maps out the six right-brain functions essential to surviving the next century (see our “how we do it” menu). Similarly, this “why” page is inspired by Simon Sinek’s Start With Why. We agree with Simon that purpose driven-work is not only more inspiring, but that it’s scientifically more effective. There’s many more (the late Daniel Postman) that deserve shoutouts, but I think you get the idea. We don’t “do” communications…we are communicators.

Today, we at Mean Communications realize that not only is it difficult to know how to navigate the constantly shifting tides of communications platforms, but it’s also tough to find a message that cuts through the noise and resonates with your audience. Sometimes, it feels like you’re hearing everything under water, and everything coming out of your organization is being heard as gibberish. Let us help you get the water out of your ears, find your voice, and shine.